Page 109 of The Dragon 2
By the next station, the area around us resembled a quarantine zone. An entire third of the train car remained mysteriously empty.
People gave us side-eyes like we were riding with a bomb instead of bodyguards.
And honestly? They weren’t wrong.
This is really going to take some time to get used to.
The train rumbled beneath us—smooth but insistent. Every turn made the handrails rattle.
Overhead, a soft robotic voice announced the next stop in perfect Japanese and clipped English. I held onto the hanging strap and tried not to overthink the whole situation.
Across from me, Zo leaned against the wall and had one hand lazily gripping the overhead bar.
Further in the train, an old man dozed beside a briefcase, a high school girl chewed gum and scrolled her phone, and two friends whispered behind surgical masks.
One of Kenji’s guards sat three feet away, pretending not to watch me, but I knew better. If I tripped and fell, he would catch me before I hit the ground.
Wow.
Zo whistled a few stray notes from some sexy jazz number. “Have you thought of what your date is going to be yet?”
“I’m still thinking.”
“What do you need from me?”
“To help pull any powerful strings you have. I definitely need a space to have the date.”
“I bet you do.”
“It has to be private, but inmybudget. Still, it should be beautiful. The kind of place where no one would expect a woman like me to take the Dragon.”
Zo chuckled. “I love it when you get like this.”
“Like what?”
“Plotting. Dangerous. Hot.” He winked. “You want to flip the dynamic, don’t you?”
“I do.”
The train picked up speed, humming beneath our feet.
The tunnel lights blurred in streaks of white and gray, flashing past the windows.
I got closer to Zo. “I want to shift the power dynamics between us.”
“In what way?”
“I want to make him kneel.”
“And you thinkI’mcrazy?”
“I don’t think it’s crazy to want this.”
“You want the scariest man in this country to. . .kneel?”
I swallowed, then nodded slowly. “I want to be in control, so I want this date to say that.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
